We Hear You! Letters from Our November 2011 Issue

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MORE • Editors

A week ago, on a whim, I picked up a copy of your magazine for the first time off the shelf. I am a 37 year old Jamaican mother and wife who have embarked on a spiritual journey. Hence the decision to buy your magazine, as I am looking for “more” as cliché as that might sound. I have been buying “Self” magazine for years, now replaced by “More”. I was delighted to leaf through your magazine and be inspired by your articles in your October issue with Naomi Watts on the cover.

My favorite article “Big Love” captivated me as it helped to explain a deep fascination I have had for elephants. I cannot remember when or why but I have been collecting elephants for years and counting. I even affixed a silver elephant pin to the tail of my wedding dress for reasons unknown to me. I really respected Amanda Robb’s brutal honesty with regards to her vanity in the attitude section and felt immense gratitude for my own mother now deceased after reading Kathryn Harrison’s “memoir”. This is an amazing magazine, which I have taken the liberty to submit my story today with regards to finding a career path that is supportive of my number one role as mother. I do hope you take the time to read my story. I am attaching a photo as I think it will allow for a deeper connection with this email if you can attach a face to it.

For now, thank you for the concept of "More." I can’t wait to see the November issue.
--Sherie Ranston

I think the concept for this story is brilliant! And I have a story to share that you have not touched on.

What do you do when you earn 6 figures, are highly regarded in society, married for 28 years, the pillar of society and in one moment you throw it all away and end up in prison? How do you reinvent yourself after that? You have it all, you throw it away, and you have to start over at 50 with NOTHING. It happens all the time.

Those women, those stories, deserve to be heard.
--Toby Dorr

This is in reference to the memoir....A date with the man that got away" written by Joanne Kaufman.....

I am a BOOMER who has had the awesome experience of living that scenario.....at the age of 62 when it started by being found on classmate by a former classmate......it also lasted two years plus.....I was and am still single...he was married and still is.....

I am European born so my outlook on life is LIVE..........

Joanne Kaufman the author captured the essence of such a relationship......and only those who have experienced such a dalliance can appreciate her candor.....

What you label "5 year bulimia habit" is called an Eating Disorder. You would call biting your nails for years a habit, but you wouldn't called a 5 year regular use of cocaine a "habit" but an addiction--which coincidentally is what Eating Disorders are clinically considered, a form of addiction. By misrepresenting it you unintentionally can hurt women struggling with this disease by feeding their own denial of its seriousness and convincing themselves that it is just a bad "habit"--just like biting your nails, right?
--Carmen Perez- Illade LMHC, Oviedo, Florida

Editors, I really enjoyed this issue. I love the stories of people who re-invent themselves, stories of people with clever ideas, and generally stories about real people. There is one issue that I have. It seems to me, that in almost every issue (and I’ve been a subscriber for quite a while) there is story of someone and her infidelity (name the scenario... fling with married man, cheating on significant other, whatever). I find these articles so base and so dispiriting I can't begin to say. While it's true that it happens all the time, I don't think a fine magazine like yours has to give the situation credence by writing about it so much. While there are those who would say it's an everyday occurrence- these behaviors leave so much destruction in their wakes that prominence in your magazine seems like rewarding bad behavior. As you are so creative in putting together all the parts of your magazine- I think you could find something to fill in the place of these articles.
--Henna Kenigsberg

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Comments

Wow! I know I'm late to this, but I read "A Date with the Man that Got away" while waiting in the doctor's office, for not surprisingly, depression.
Joanne Kaufman’s article was read by me with horrid fascination, as I hoped it would be a denouncement of past mistakes, or at least profess regret. I am still recovering from my 42 year-old husband's affair with a 26 year-old co-worker. I am still with my husband, but it has been a very, very difficult time. We have an 8 year-old and a 12 year-old who never knew about the affair, but sure know that Mom has been a wreck for the last year.
It may be mean-spirited, but I hope Joanne gets to have her world and foundations rocked in the same manner as so many of us have had. I hope that goofy grin she gets on her face when her husband enters the room is forever wiped away. She has that grin only because her beliefs, and confidence, and surety have not been shattered.
Boo hiss!
Lynn

There was a letter to Dear Abby once asking what the definition of maturity was. The answer was that maturity is the ability to control our impulses, to think beyond the moment, and consider how our words and our actions will affect ourselves and others before we act. Clearly Joanne Kaufman, her affair partner, and others like them are not mature individuals. The fact that she helped dissolve a marriage with young children doesn't seem to be of any interest to her, just knowing that she stills matters does. It is disturbing that MORE printed such a self-absorbed, all-about-me article. Will you have an article from the wife about how she put her life back together after her husband found his "soul mate" while he was married to her? Reading about the strength of that woman would fit MORE better than the story about the selfish woman. Or maybe a story about the woman who fell for a married man and ran in the other direction! As it is, though, the November issue should be called LESS.

Joanne Kaufman's article describes a narcissistic, insensitive woman who gave no thought to the heartache her affair caused the man's wife and children. I'm disappointed MORE chose to publish such drivel. MORE encourages women over 40 to have a positive self image...unfortunately some women are CRUEL to each other. Shame on them. Joanne hasn't learned anything as she doesn't regret her affair

The article by Joanne Kaufman was disturbing, to say the least. Just because he made her feel good (and vice versa so it seems) is NO reason to pursue a relationship with a married person, period! There are lots of people "out there" who can be one's soul mate, as evidenced by the fact that she met someone else and got married. The pain and devastation of her married lover's wife is overwhelming and continuing. Infidelity completely changes the betrayed partner's life. I can only hope Joanne does not have to go through this if her current husband decides to do the same thing with another woman who thinks he is her "soul mate." Only then will she truly understand the pain she caused. Just because she wanted something does not mean she should have pursued it. She should have and could have ended it, even though he said "he would love her till he died." They were both in a fog of unreality. How could they know they loved each other when they hadn't shared any of life's less than ideal moments together. Ugh, Ugh, Ugh - this kind of thing gets too much glory. For those who wrote relating to her, here's hoping the same thing doesn't happen to you.

I really enjoy most of the well written, useful articles in MORE. I find it inspiring and exhilarating to read about women who have great ideas and accomplish so much while contributing to humanity. I am disturbed however, by the Nov. issue article by Joanne Kaufman. From the tenor throughout the article, there is the sense that somehow having sex with a married man is inevitable if the attraction is there. I don't judge Ms. Kaufman personally. But her writing is dishonest, selfish, and insensitive, if not just plain juvenile. When we take what we want, we become desensitized towards those it affects as well as to how it affects us personally. The topper was going back for more... just to know that "I still matter". It isn't okay. It's creepy.